Chapter 58.3- One Thousand Hands

I did, jumping to the left as a bolt of screaming lightning shot across the area where I’d just been standing. A second later, I belt Uzume’s chakra bleed into the mist and it was only my familiarity with her bag of tricks that had me blowing out a gust of hurricane force winds as I spun in a circle to dismiss the now electrified mist before it could reach me. She said nothing, remaining silent, but I felt her fingers and hands move in deliberate movements. Shurikenjutsu, I figured. The only issue was that she hadn’t added any chakra to the shuriken so I had no idea where they were. I stabbed my hand into the ground, turning it into mud and commanding it to rise around me in a dome that protected me from the attack as I felt the shiriken bury themselves in the mud.

Through my mud, I could feel the ones that had tags attached to them, and those ones were surrounded by even more mud as I swallowed the explosions thanks to mud release. Still in the dome, I lifted my hand to heal my eyes again, but had to move. The ground beneath me bulged as Uzume shot out of my mud, flames beneath her feet. She spun into a kick that I caught in one hand before I tossed her into the dome that surrounded me, commanding the mud to grab and restrain her.

The body I’d caught exploded into fire and ash, sending me reeling as the sound ruptured both my eardrums in one go. I could see it now, the strategy she was employing. Disorient me to prevent me from bring my natural advantages to bear and force me to play her game. My mud rose to block another lance of lightning release chakra— A mistake. The spear shot through my mud like it was not even there, forcing me to bend backwards at my waist to avoid the attack. I felt her jump in the air, gunbai in hand and forced my body down into the mud, sinking deeper and deeper until I was sure that there was nothing she could do to reach me here without risking the watching audience. My hands rose and begun the work of healing both my eyes and ears. Eyes first as they were already mostly recovered. Ears next.

I could have used Kurama’s chakra to do both at any time but I knew that Uzume would count it as her win the second I relied on borrowed power. Steam release from Kokuo’s tail didn’t count because it wasn’t like using direct tailed beast chakra, and she had no idea where I’d gotten it from. When both my eyes and ears had recovered, I rose to the ground once again.

“Done with your break?” She asked with a scoff. I smiled and shot in her direction like a bullet.